Chabad plans Jewish center for Monroe

Monroe, NY — You might have seen them recently leading menorah-lighting Hanukkah ceremonies and shepherding kids around Orange County in stretch Hummer limousines with menorahs lashed to the roof.

Rabbi Pesach Burston and his wife, Chana, run an Orange County chapter of Chabad, the Brooklyn-based Hasidic organization that runs education and outreach programs for all kinds of Jews around the world.

Having gotten by with various rented spaces and homes since starting up in 2004, the Burstons are now polishing plans for a 22,000-square-foot center in downtown Monroe that would gather their programs under one roof and provide their first synagogue.

The Gilbert Street building would include a sanctuary for up to 120 people and a social hall for as many as 200. It would also hold classrooms, a teen lounge, offices, a library and a children’s discovery room.

The group has no precise membership count. However, approximately 175 people attend its holiday services, on average, and around 40 kids are enrolled in its Hebrew classes in Monroe and Goshen, Burston says.
Traffic has been the main issue as the Village of Monroe Planning Board has reviewed Chabad’s building proposal.

The initial plan was to connect dead-end Orchard Street to Gilbert Street to create two access routes for the Chabad building, and eight houses that were going to be built around it.

But the Burstons scrapped the through street after Orchard Street residents objected. Their latest proposal leaves Orchard Street as a cul de sac and puts the Chabad building entrance on Gilbert Street.

That, in turn, has raised concerns about Gilbert Street traffic and peeved at least one Planning Board member, who preferred the through-street design.

“They shouldn’t have responded to the neighbors at this point,” Fred Cocks, the Planning Board member, said last week. “They should have waited until the public hearing.”

But Burston said neighborhood concerns were only one factor. Extending Orchard Street would require blasting, removing 50,000 cubic yards of dirt and building large retaining walls, he said.

The Planning Board has commissioned a traffic study that examines both alternatives and hopes to review it before the Jan. 22 public hearing on the proposal.

Eliminating the cost of the through-street enabled the developer to reduce the number of proposed houses to three, one of which would be occupied by the Burstons.

Once the Planning Board approves the project, Chabad will launch a capital campaign to raise the roughly $3 million it will cost to build the center, Pesach Burston said.